PAX East 2022: Day 2

By: Mithrandiel

Another day in the lovely city of Boston as PAX East marches into day 2! Come along with me as I share what my day looked like:

Lacking the trademark "early access" benefit today, I waited until closer to the show opening to head to the hall. Once the major lines had filtered in, I strolled onto the floor around 10:10 AM.

In the meantime, I got a great view of the lines!

Once on the floor, my first appointment was with Brace Yourself Games. There, I got a closer look at two games: Industries of Titan and Phantom Brigade.

Ryan Clark, founder of Brace Yourself Games, was gracious enough to join me during my demo session to answer some questions on both games. Now, I've previously spent some time with Industries of Titan, so it was great to see that in the two years or so since the last update, they've refined a lot of the mechanics. Certain resource and informational panels are much more readable, tech trees have been added in and more.

As I was wrapping up my time with Industries of Titan, I asked Ryan about the seemingly intimidating level of depth to the game. While it certainly seemed tailored to fans of the 4x strategy genre, I wondered if perhaps it was a bit too specific and would scare off potential players.

Ryan made it clear that the tutorial at the beginning of the game had become much more robust, detailing all of the various components of the game in a way that players of various skill-levels could access.

With the remaining time, Ryan fired up Phantom Brigade for me to try out. This game was completely new to me, but when it was pitched as a sort of Front Mission 3 successor, I was immediately bought in.

In Phantom Brigade, you command a squadron of mechs that are fighting to defend their planet from hostile forces. A key element of your defense is a prototype technology that allows you to see 5 seconds into the future. This rests at the core of the Phantom Brigade strategy combat system. By scrubbing through the 5 second window, you can see where enemies are going to go, when they're going to shoot and where, and can attempt to move your units to intercept and destroy with that knowledge.

However, as the great Isaac Newton once pointed out: "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction."

That is to say, the enemy units will react/respond to the actions you take within that 5 second window as well, and each turn flows into the next in those 5 second intervals. In this way, Phantom Brigade's strategy warfare becomes a beautiful push and pull on the battlefield.

My time with Brace Yourself Games was great - I went in expecting to be more excited about Industries of Titan and left with a newfound fervor for Phantom Brigade instead! Regardless, both of the titles are great.

Following my time with BYG, I walked by the Dwerve booth, fully expecting it to still be busy (I had an appointment a bit later on). To my delight, it was open - and I had a chance to work through about a third of the 45 minute demo.

Those unfamiliar with the base narrative, a primer: long ago Dwarves were trained as great war smiths, capable of building towers of defense and wielding great battle prowess. In time, they were confronted with a force too strong even for them: trolls! Pushed from their fabled caverns, the dwarves sought solace in lighter environments, where the trolls couldn't follow. Their war-smithing skills fell into disrepair and legend...until now!

An action game with tower-building elements, Dwerve's gameplay felt great from the jump. Building, scrapping and re-building towers is incredibly smooth, and the aesthetics were great. Dwerve has been on my shortlist for a while, so the fact that its launch is nearly here (5/31!) is extremely exciting.

The rest of my day was an unstructured mess of chaos!

Yeah, I just wandered the floor for hours...

I successfully resisted getting more dice - even though the Very First Set is adorable.

I spotted Windjammers 2 in the mix, which basically takes Pong and puts some spice on it - with a cast of dynamic disc-slinging characters that you can choose from, it's a fantastic competitive title with a penchant for flair.

I also spotted Die by the Blade, a Bushido Blade inspired samurai fighter with various stances and special moves that leaves little room for error. It seemed to be a popular entry, so if you're interested in learning more, you can find their Twitter here.

Tomorrow is due to be a busy day at PAX, having sold out of their Saturday passes some time ago. While I'll be ending my trip tomorrow afternoon, there are still a few games I'm excited to check out tomorrow, including Motion Twin's Dead Cells, a closer look at Shredder's Revenge, and Ysbryd Games No Place for Bravery, which is being advertised as the new Hyper Light Drifter (yes please!)

The show continues to impress and I can't wait to close out the show strong tomorrow!